Jaimie's Thoughts

I could get anyone to believe it was a clumsy catch in the kitchen or a fall because I literally cannot walk, or even say I just don’t remember a trip when I had too much to drink.

I could tell him anything and get him to believe that scar was some dumb accident and nothing more.

Explaining self mutilation is one of the hardest parts when opening up about this disease.

Sometimes, I wonder to myself if people see the scars and think that it was just a clumsy accident or does it run through their minds that I took a blade to my own skin? I wonder if they silently have thought about trying it themselves, or if they already have.

How hard is it to understand the thought process of the disease if your thinking from a perfectly healthy mind?

Why would you take a blade to your skin and cause permanent damage that is so visible?

Is it a cry for help?

Is it just to make sure that you’re alive?

It is to make the outside just as ugly as you feel the inside is?

I was once asked what the inside of my mind looks like.

It looks like dark, deep scratches on grey walls. It looks like a deep hole and you’re stuck at the bottom looking up at the clouds that are covering the light at the end of the long, long tunnel.

Thats what the inside of my head looks like when it gets bad.

When it gets good?

There are covering the deep scratches. The flowers are every lie I tell myself and everyone else. The flowers are the smiles I plant on my face when things start to go good because duh, I have to be happy when “great” things happen. The flowers represent everyone who loves me and relies on me in their life. They shine on my good days.

But after the good days, bad days always follow.

So why the cutting?

It starts with comparing physical pain to emotional and mental pain.

Its the feeling of being emotionally drained, like that after a loss of someone or the loss of a job.

That emotional exhaustion that leaves your body feeling like it got hit by a truck right after you ran a marathon up a mountain in freezing rain.

Everything hurts for no reason at all.

You feel all this pain inside and out, but there is absolutely no sign of your pain.

So you cut yourself.

Whether it is because you feel like you cause so much pain to others that you must feel pain to, or you're just trying to make the outside match the inside, you cut yourself.

And for a brief moment, there is relief. Just like drugs, it wears off.

Then what?

Well then you get professional help or you do it again.

But the thing is, no matter how many time I cut myself I found myself back at square one.

(Ya ya, everyone knows it isn’t the solution, blah blah.)

I also found myself lying to my therapist about it. I was terrified that if she knew, she would lock me up in a hospital or worse, tell someone else.

An act that feels so natural to me, disgusts others.

But it is all part of my story. I’ve made peace with my scars and now they mix with the beautiful art that is also forever inked into my skin.

Soon, the scars will be completely covered by ink in the shape of flowers, vines, and birds.